Dr Pepper-Miso Marinated Short Ribs

I wish I had got a better photo of these ribs, they were sweet, salty, savoury awesomeness, and devoured too quickly for the pause of a good photo, but hey what are looks, it’s all about the taste right?

Dr Pepper is a guilty pleasure, it’s a excellent cure for a night of overindulgence, which I probably do more than is better for me, but I hadn’t thought to use it as an ingredient in my cooking until the seemingly odd combination of miso and the soda popped into my head. Salty umami laden miso combined with fruity sweet soda paired with some slow cooked rich red meat, it seemed kind of wrong but I couldn’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t work.

1 Rack of short ribs
1 Can of Dr Pepper (reduced to 125 ml)
2 tsp Miso paste (shiro)
½ tsp Chilli flakes
1 tsp Cider vinegar
Splash, dash or glug of oil

Slice the rack part way down the meat between the ribs (or whatever serving size you choose) to allow the marinade to work in a bit deeper.

Combine all the ingredients and check the seasoning, adjusting either with more miso or a dash of salt. Marinade the beef for up to 24 hours.


Slice a red onion, and dice a couple of carrots and place in an oven-proof dish, lay the marinaded beef on top and pour over the remaining marinade. Cover with tinfoil and cook at 140–150°C for 3 hours.

When cooked carefully remove the ribs and set aside, get a heavy baking sheet in the oven and crank up the heat to 220°C, when up to temp place the ribs on the heated pan and cook for 10–15 minutes to give a nice crust, but be careful not to dry out the meat.

While the beef cooks pass the cooked vegetables and any juices through mouli adjust the seasoning and use it as a sauce for the ribs.

Sticky ribs

One of the great bonuses of buying pork belly is the attached spare ribs. You could cook the belly with them attached, but quite frankly they make portioning and serving the belly more work than it should be. I usually slice them off as a whole rack, bag and freeze them for use later as stock bones or a very tasty lunch.

Cooking ribs is an easy two step process, simmering the ribs until they're cooked and almost falling off the bone, then grilling and glazing. Fill a pot large enough to hold the ribs with water, soy sauce, star anise and a chopped up onion, bring it to the boil and place in the ribs, simmer for 30 minutes.

While the ribs are simmering, preheat the oven to 200-220°C (or get the BBQ going), in a bowl mix together tomato ketchup; five spice; minced ginger; minced garlic; soy sauce; ground chilli; and honey.


Drain the ribs and pat dry, be careful as they will be fragile. Brush the ribs with the glaze and place in the hot oven. After 10 minutes remove from the oven, flip and baste with the glaze, cook for a further 10 minutes. Repeat twice more (40 minutes in total, they may be done after 30).

I like to serve a couple of ribs with some simple steamed rice, coriander and slices of spring onion, the accompaniments help clean the palate. A finger bowl on the table is a good idea too.

Catch-up

Well I've been a little lazy about getting my posts up here, Internet is dreadfully slow at home at the moment, so am "borrowing" works bandwidth. I thought I'd do a little photo essay type thing over a couple of post, so enjoy...